EIA expects electric power sector coal sector inventories to remain low through 2019

Coal inventories for the U.S. electric power sector are expected to remain low through 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s August Short-Term Energy Outlook.

The report forecasted that coal stockpiles would continue to decrease through 2018 and remain low through 2019. An additional 7.9 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired capacity is expected to retire by the end of 2018, 90 percent of which will occur in the South. An additional four GW is scheduled to retire in 2019, 57 percent of which will happen in the West and 35 percent of which will occur in the South.

Between 2014 and 2017, approximately 31 GW of coal-fired capacity retired, mostly in the Midwest and the South. End-of-year stockpiles of coal in the electric power sector declined 10 percent from 152 million short tons (MMst) to 137 MMst during the same period. The South experienced a decrease of 14 MMst or 20 percent, the largest decline in end-of-year stockpiles.

In May 2018, coal inventories in the electric power sector totaled 128 MMst, a decrease of 34 MMst from May 2017 and the lowest at that time of year since 2014. As of May 2018, coal-fired capacity had an average of approximately 75 days of burn, and more than more than half of coal-fired capacity had at least 60 days of burn.

Stockpiles averaged 35 MMst, or 22 percent, less during the first five months of 2018 compared with 2017.